HL Deb 10 November 2003 vol 654 cc159-60WA
Lord Ouseley

asked Her Majesty's Government:

How policies aimed at helping poor families to climb out of social exclusion are affected by the lack of accessible legal aid. [HL5204]

Lord Filkin

The Community Legal Service (CLS) aims to improve access for all to good quality legal and advice services and underpins other government policies that promote social inclusion. In many areas local CLS providers have linked up with other government programmes to jointly help people to climb out of social exclusion. The exent to which the CLS has been successful in doing this will be measured by the second national periodic survey of legal need (which will be carried out in April 2004) and the local legal need telephone survey (the findings of which are expected in January 2004).

My department continues to monitor closely the sufficiency of the supplier base and is satisfied that there is currently no widespread problem in providing adequate coverage of legal and advice services in England and Wales. Nor has there been any change in the scope of CLS service since the Access to Justice Act 1999 was implemented.